


Consilience

by laverna_aurelius



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Friendship, I tried to be canon, I've taken some liberties, Kill your double, M/M, Mirrors, Mystery, Older Man/Younger Man, Possible AU, Resolving all tension, Romance, Time Travel, Timey-Wimey, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, i'm not a scientist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 07:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laverna_aurelius/pseuds/laverna_aurelius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the untimely death of The Voice of Night Vale, it's up to Carlos to pick up the pieces and travel back in time to prevent the tragedy from ever taking place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consilience

**Author's Note:**

> I've taken some pretty big liberties with the universe to write this and have tried very hard to be as canon as possible. I've been working on it for a while now. Spoilers(ish?) up to recent episodes. I don't have a beta, so I apologize in advance for any discrepancies and/or typos. Also, I know there are some common elements in here that have been used before and are not mine, so thanks to your bright minds for the inspiration!

Carlos heaved a heavy sigh brimming with regret. He should have come sooner. He'd had the means, he was just so fascinated. That strange Other Worldly Desert held unimaginably unexplainable wonders. But so did Night Vale. And so did Cecil. He loved Cecil, but he loved science just a tad more, something he hated himself for everyday and had ruined many a relationship in the past. 

The hands that had been so carefully working as his thoughts ran rampant stilled for a moment and Carlos tore his gaze away from the endless desert and focused again on the project at hand. 

After the subway debacle, Dana had thought a new and improved form of rapid transit was in order. She had asked him to look into building portals in key points of the city. She told him to take his time and work instead on getting reacquainted with Night Vale, and yet here he was, trying to rig up a safe particle transference portal loosely based on their time travel technology, which Carlos still found to be endlessly confusing and enthralling.

He would never admit aloud to himself or anyone else, but Carlos was avoiding Cecil. There'd been a tangible shift in their relationship since his return that Carlos found suffocating. It was Cecil's day off and the two usually spent the afternoon enjoying Council-approved movies or bowling, but Carlos had spouted off about an experiment with mirrors at the lab. Cecil's respect for Carlos's work and fear of mirrors was sure to keep him at bay. It made him absolutely sick with guilt.

A buzz in his pocket pulled Carlos away from that dangerous train of thought and he glanced at the screen, which displayed a picture of a lighthouse towering over a sandy desert. He knew immediately it was Dana and quickly answered.

"Hello?"

"Carlos! Oh I finally got you! I've been trying forever! Oh, Carlos, something terrible has happened!" Dana squeaked, her sweet voice pained and breathless. 

"What's wrong? What's happened?"

"It's Cecil! He's... He's... Oh drat, you need to get to the hospital now!"

Carlos didn't need to be told twice. Like a shot he was on his feet and racing towards his car, his heart jumping into his throat. He took his chances at driving recklessly fast through the suburban streets. If Cecil was hurt, chances are the Sheriff's Secret Police already knew and hopefully wouldn't mind his blatant disregard for traffic laws and supposed public safety. 

Carlos didn't remember the rest of the journey, he simply suddenly found himself barreling into the hospital, stumbling gracelessly into the small crowd of people gathered outside of Cecil's room. 

"What's going on?" Carlos asked breathlessly, resting his palms on his knees and bending forward to catch his breath.

Dana was the first to speak, Old Woman Josie had a reassuring hand on the young mayor’s shoulder and Earl Harlan standing behind her, twisting his chef’s hat in worry. "Cecil.. Oh, Carlos, I'm so sorry, but he's dead."

Her words didn't register at first and took longer than usual to sink in. "That's impossible. I just saw him this morning. We ate breakfast together. He can't.. I mean.. How?" 

His breathing became quick and shallow as he awaited Dana's response. Hot, salty tears beginning to gather in the corners of his dark eyes, and he blinked rapidly to hold off the oncoming torrent.

She was holding an official-looking, putrid green document and began to read from it. "The official statement from the police officer assigned to your lab states that at approximately 3pm Night Vale time, Cecil entered your lab, and shortly after there was an explosion. The police officer entered to find Cecil on the ground clutching undiscovered technology in his hand, and a the broken pieces of a mirror scattered around him. There was a hole blown into his chest of unknown origin." Dana's voice was professional and detached, but her eyes told another story. She was absolutely heartbroken. 

People died in Night Vale all the time, and sometimes from fantastical causes, but Cecil wasn't people, he was special and loved by all. It didn't take a scientist to see that.

Carlos finally stepped into the freezing hospital room, the trio following closely behind. He stared down at Cecil's ashen face, regret and remorse grasping his heart so tightly that he couldn't breathe. One of Cecil’s greatest quirks was the way he seemed to change colors. He’d always told Carlos that since he didn’t look into mirrors, his body didn’t know what it was supposed to look like. So somedays his hair would be bright red, others as black as night. His skin would range from a variety of fleshy tones, but the twisting, almost tribal looking tattoos that were etched across his entire body were always a constant shade of violet. Today, Cecil’s hair had been a shocking shade of teal, his skin as white as snow with eyes as warm as a sunset.

What if he never got to wake up to Cecil again? He loved straightening his boyfriend’s tie, and telling him what color his hair and eyes were so that he could dress accordingly. 

The overwhelming sense of loss and desperation overtook Carlos, shaking him and screaming ‘How could you let this happen?! This is all your fault!’ 

He had to fix this. There had to be a way.

"It's just like his mother predicted," Dana noted quietly. 

Carlos's eyes widened with clarity. He carefully searched his memory, waiting for something to jump out at him. "I think I know what happened, but it’s just a theory."

All eyes focused on Carlos, their faces a mixture of relief and suspicion. "I mean no offense, Carlos," Earl said carefully, finally speaking for the first time with his gentle, shaking voice, "but what does outsider know about the goings-on of Night Vale?"

Although Earl's expression was one of worry and pity, and not of malice, his words still cut deeply.

Carlos ignored him.

"Always kill your double," Carlos offered quietly, as if deliberating to himself. His cryptic words ignited a spark of interest within the crowd. "What if the Doubles aren't as we expected? What if... I don’t know... What if they live in the mirrors? What if they aren’t even mirrors, but windows?"

Old Woman Josie nodded sage. "That's actually not a bad point. Do you think his Double broke through? If so, why haven't they done it before?"

"Who's to say they haven't?" Carlos countered darkly, causing the temperature of the room to drop a few degrees. 

Everyone silently contemplated the implications, each one clearly devising an individual plan of attack. 

"We can't very well wage war against the Doubles," Josie offered thoughtfully, "but maybe we could go back to the time Cecil may have become aware of his Double, then draw him out and kill him for good."

"But who do we send back?" Dana asked.

"I'll do it!" Earl suggested, a bit too excitedly for Carlos's taste.

Dana shook her head. "I think that'd be some kind of temporal paradox, which as you know has been upgraded to something more serious than a minor offense.”

Earl’s freckled forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Why?”

“From what I understand, if there aren’t multiple realities, but I’m almost certain there are, then you can't meet a past version of yourself without having memory of it and the future version of yourself cannot be surprised to see past you, having had to be there to see it to make it possible. And there’s of course the issue of double occupancy, which I think would be the most troublesome because it deals with your body's occupied space,” Carlos recited with glazed eyes, recalling something he’d read on the internet. He stopped explaining before he himself got lost in the information. “It’s just a theory though. There’s no evidence to support that. Obviously.”

“We could ask the an---- I mean, Erika,” Dana suggested.

It was Josie's turn to disagree. "No. I think sending spiritual energy like that to the past might not be a good idea. They weren’t around back then and there must be a reason for it. I think the answer is clear."

All eyes locked on Josie, and after a few seconds of waiting for them to figure it out, Carlos rolled his eyes. "She means me. Send me back. Which only makes sense. If I tread carefully, I wouldn't create a possible paradox because I didn't live her then and time is so different here that I might not have even been born, and anyone who became suspicious of me could be sent for re-education."

"That's a good point," agreed Dana. "I can get City Council to write up an official form. Since The Voice hasn't manifested in anyone else yet, then this could technically be considered a state of emergency."

"So it's settled." Josie looked Carlos in the eyes. "Everyone come to my house at sunset. We can prepare Carlos for Past Night Vale over tea and almond muffins, then make a prayer circle for his departure."

...

Carlos took a bite of the muffin and let it crumble and melt in his mouth. Old Woman Josie's baked goods had taken a drastic turn for the better since the ban on wheat and wheat by-products. The rich, almond flour she made herself moistened her muffins and gave them some much needed flavor. He washed down the muffin with a glass of warm peppermint tea, his hands shaking with nerves.

He hadn't had the opportunity to really travel through time, although he had vague recollections of doing so that only manifested themselves in dreams, just moments before waking up. 

Carlos's ears perked at the mention of Cecil and he realized that Earl and Dana were chatting about the new cooking segment, and which sweets Cecil would like the best, seemingly no longer that Cecil was lying dead in a cold hospital. 

Did they have that much faith in Carlos?

"So what is it that you want to prepare me for?" he asked, genuinely worried that Night Vale might have possibly been even weirder back then.

"Well, I think it's best to go back to when Cecil was about twenty-one, which should be about right, give or take a decade or so."

A million questions sprouted in Carlos's mind about why she had said decade instead of year, but he managed to suppress his need for answers for the time being. "Why is twenty-one a significant age?"

"Oh," Earl exclaimed seriously, a light blush tinting his cheeks. "That was when The Voice first awoke within Cecil, before he knew how to control it and manipulate it like he does now. It was a rough time to have ears."

Josie nodded gravely. "As you may know, many centuries ago, the founders of Night Vale created The Voice in order to keep its citizens on the right track. Before one Voice dies, another must be born in someone else. You can usually tell when a Voice is nearing death because a new one manifests. Cecil was twenty-one and had just finished training to open his third eye when he was gifted with the Voice. Everyone knew it was going to happen, though, as Leonard alluded to the fact regularly.”

"That's a lot of power for one person!" Dana blanched.

"Mm. I think he was the only one of his class to survive the third-eye certification ceremony," Earl said quietly.

"I'm still not entirely sure what having an opened third eye entails.." Carlos trailed off, feeling dumb for being so far from the realm of his understanding. 

"From what I read before, it's like the ability to read people," answered Dana. "You can read their emotions, their fears, their dreams, and if you're really skilled, their thoughts. Some can even predict futures. They don't offer that class at the community college anymore, and all the textbooks were stolen by rogue Librarians and are hidden away in the restricted section of the library."

"And Cecil? Can he...?"

Josie shook her head. "Oh no, Cecil sealed off that power years ago. That’s what those tattoos are for. He only uses it in the event of an emergency. He had a lot if potential though, but he had all that power sealed away. It was probably for the better."

"But why is twenty-one important?" Carlos politely reminded Josie.

"Oh, yes. Because that was the last time Cecil mentioned a mirror until a year or so ago."

"Do you remember why?"

"No, I don't. I can only remember when. Now let's get this over with. Earl, fetch the bloodstones and let's make a prayer circle."

....

Josie had told Carlos to fill his head with thoughts of Cecil while they chanted. It would make it easier to connect the two and therefore make his journey safer. Carlos didn’t question the logic behind it, although he’d wanted to. When the chanting began, Carlos thought of Cecil’s laugh, and the way it would slowly build as he gained more understanding of what he was laughing at. And the way his voice, his perfect beautiful voice, could completely convey every emotion he was currently feeling, and force the listener to feel it as well. 

As he recalled his most significant moments with Cecil, there was another string of memories being pulled from his conscious. They were memories he'd never had and didn't recognize. His heart nearly stopped when he realized they were memories that he would never have. They were a future he might never know, sacrificed and forced to be rewritten because he was changing the course of events. The knowledge that his actions might have an adverse affect on his and Cecil’s future made his stomach churn.

Despite his momentary freak-out, time traveling seemed altogether unremarkable. He didn't feel as though his atoms had been torn apart, dragged across time, and then reassembled. He simply blinked and was in the same place, except the house looked younger. A deep emptiness now hollowed him out, and he had to physically shake away his reservations about this trip in order to focus.

He quickly scurried out the front door, gripping his notarized Time Travel and Internal Affairs form like a lifeline. He was honestly surprised that City Council had approved his request so quickly and efficiently. The cynic in him said that the only explanation was an error on their part that needed to be fixed.

Carlos could do their dirty work if it meant saving Cecil.

As he walked along the familiar but strangely deserted streets, noting all of the changes that had taken place in such a seemingly short time, Carlos realized that he had no idea where to find the City Council. Usually the City Council did the finding.

He was just about to lose hope when he heard a loud laugh. It was familiar in that he recognized it immediately, but different because the melodious, wholehearted sound stirred something deeply visceral within Carlos. Without understanding why, he felt his breath quicken and his feet begin to carry him towards the sound. The smell of burning firewood filled his nostrils as he drew closer to the laughter.

Suddenly, the sound was lost in a cacophony of excited voices, all cheering and singing, alcohol clearly cushioning their vocal confidence. After cutting through a few backyards, Carlos realized that he was entering Mission Grove Park and there was a huge bonfire jutting out of the earth like a flaming mountain looming over the tree-line. 

It looked like the entire town was present, celebrating some victory. But instead of the usual face paint and team colors, the townspeople appeared to be covered in blood and dirt, their clothes ripped and singed, their smiles a stark contrast to whatever carnage had just ensued.

Carlos stuck the shadows along the trees, keeping his eyes peeled and his ears open, searching for that laugh. He wasn't prepared when he finally found Cecil. He just needed to seem him, alive and happy, one last time before throwing himself into this mission the only way he knew how: completely and obsessively.

He was young and almost unrecognizable, but Carlos knew it was him in an instant. No laugh lines gave this face the familiar depth Carlos was used to. This Cecil had a smooth, round face and bright eyes; they were magenta and practically glowed in the firelight. His hair was a tousled mess of short, burgundy waves. Just above his signature black frames, in the very middle of his forehead, a purple outline of an eye stared out from his olive skin like a fresh tattoo. 

Then, as if literally feeling unfamiliar eyes on his person, Cecil turned and faced Carlos, giving him a huge smile. How could he possibly see him? It was so dark, but Cecil saw him, and was coming towards him. 

Although still awkward, Cecil walked with the swagger of someone famous, and judging by the way dewy eyes watching his every move, Carlos assumed Cecil was just that. 

Cecil's Dark Owl Records shirt was splattered with blood, beneath it a white button up shirt was missing a sleeve to a reveal tattoo-less arm, and at his hip set a portable recorder, the microphone sticking out of his back pocket. As he got closer, Carlos saw a lanyard around Cecil's neck that read "Night Vale Community Radio Intern" that had been burned, the melted plastic distorting his name until it was unrecognizable.

And when he spoke, even time stopped to listen. 

"You look a little too clean to have participated in our annual school fundraiser. You are aware that it's mandatory to attend, right?" Cecil's voice still held the deep, rhythmic cadence Carlos remembered well, albeit the pitch was a tad higher, but the sound did something entirely different than before. Carlos could actually feel Cecil's words entering his mind, urging him to explain himself thoroughly and tell Cecil everything. It made him feel simultaneously terrified and aroused so much that he couldn't help the blush that erupted onto his face.

"I.. Well.. You see," he stammered, searching for words yet finding nothing but Cecil's voice.

A blush of his own painted Cecil's cheeks and he smiled apologetically, sputtering in embarrassment. "I'm so sorry! I still can't completely control The Voice. Honestly, I can't tell a difference but nobody shuts up about it. Anyways, I don't think we've met. I guess not though, you're like way older than me. I'm at every PTA meeting and you can't have children or I'd have seen you. Are you a professor? I've been meaning to do a piece on the Science Department ever since the Incident, but I'm always so busy.."

Carlos just stared blankly as Cecil continued to rattle off about a million things, and every few moments his voice would slip back into The Voice and Carlos couldn't help but shiver and commit those few random words to memory. Otherwise, it was just a blur of sensations strung together but not forming a complete thought.

For a moment he had forgotten that Cecil, his Cecil, was dead. When he recalled why exactly he was here, the pain pulled him from the trance that this man-child's voice seemed to trap him in. The agony that seized him was so intense that he fell to his knees, clutching his chest. He needed to get out of here and get find City Council.

His vision swam back and forth, and he was only faintly aware of Cecil's voice calling out to him in a frenzied, panicked voice, asking his name and if he was seeing the color blue. Carlos knew from experience that he was suffering from a massive panic attack, something he hadn't encountered since he was in his twenties. Realizing that he was about to lose consciousness, Carlos shielded his face with his arms as he fell forward into the dry grass.

....

Coming to, the earthy scent of burlap was the first thing Carlos caught and it pulled him into reality, but he opened his eyes to complete darkness. Not only was there a bag placed over his head, but a quick tug of his arms indicated that he was tied up as well.

"Yes, I understand that this form has been notarized by an official, but I have no idea who this Dana character is and why she'd send us this outsider," spoke a gravelly voice unfamiliar to Carlos. He couldn’t help but flinch at the way he practically spat 'outsider' like the word left a rotten taste in his mouth. 

"Interloper or not, it is notarized and this is definitely my handwriting. I highly doubt that I would betray the Council. Besides, the situation seems pretty dire," a woman responded matter-of-factly. 

A snort sounded, followed by the nasally voice of a mouth-breather. "I don't see how we could have allowed this to happen. We can't be held responsible for actions future us have done. That's prejudice."

Carlos wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion. Prejudice against whom?

There was a loud, fizzing sound like when the cap is being twisted off of a bottle of soda. A few murmurs of disagreement followed. 

"Well, you can't deny the number of mirror-related deaths this year," countered the woman.

"Why else would we have re-education if we couldn't?" asked what sounded like a Speak & Spell.

A man sighed, his voice considerably younger than the rest. "Well, he is a scientist, and since the Incident in the Science Department, we've had more deaths than we can count. We're going to have to revise our medical release forms, which could take years. Maybe we can hire him as a teacher part-time and let him investigate the mirrors on his own time."

The woman spoke again, a hint of malice in her voice. "I agree. We've had that floating ball of sentient gas on the payroll for far too long and he's done absolutely nothing about the cat problem."

Everyone hummed in agreement, and when the bag was lifted from Carlos's head, he was sitting in an empty lecture hall. In front of him sat a class schedule, what he assumed to be a keyring although many of the shapes didn't look like keys at all, and what appeared to be a shiny, fourth dimensional rotating apple that he was too afraid to touch. He glanced around, realizing that his hands were untied. Had they ever been tied? His eyes rested on the huge blackboard behind him. In large, scrawling letters, someone had written three words that sent chills down his spine.

TRUST NO ONE.

...


End file.
